For today’s episode, we talked with Karol Szubstarski, a venture investor at OTB Ventures. With over a decade of experience in the realm of venture capital, Karol brings a blend of traditional and corporate VC expertise to the table. He spent five years as an Associate and Investment Analyst at Intel Capital, identifying opportunities across Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, to name a few. In his current role at OTB Ventures, Karol spearheads investments in Series A opportunities, focusing on deep tech. In this episodes, he shares about: How personal experiences fuels hi ..read more

Our guest today is Bartosz Lipnicki, an entrepreneur, investor, and Managing Director at Endeavor Poland. With a background in industrial engineering, Bartosz's career trajectory has evolved to encompass sales, business development, and entrepreneurship. Bartosz is the Founder and Managing Partner at Alfabeat, a seed fund specializing in enterprise software companies from Central and Eastern Europe. Beyond his professional endeavors, Bartosz is an avid marathon and tower runner. In this episodes, he touches on: ☑️ How to escape the 'hamster wheel' ☑️ The skills of the future ☑️ The importance ..read more

Our guest today is Krzysztof (Chris) Wrobel, the founder and CEO of Virbe AI, a startup incorporating a one-stop-shop solution to extend your team with AI-powered digital employees. With passion and experience for the future of digital interaction, Chris founded Virbe AI, a Virtual Being creation suite, designed to transform Conversational AI and chatbots into interactive human-like avatars. Chris is also involved in mentoring and guiding other companies in embracing emerging technologies. In this episodes, he touches on: How he started his entrepreneurial journey by accident; What can a Virtu ..read more

Our next guest is an engineer turned entrepreneur turned investor. Borys Musielak is a founding partner at Polish SMOK Ventures, having a particular focus on software development tools, game development, and artificial intelligence. In 2007, he founded OSnews.pl, a pioneering news site covering tech, marketing, and business. He also co-founded Filmaster, a platform providing personalized analytics solutions, acquired by Silicon Valley-based Samba TV in 2015. His contributions to the ecosystem extend to mentoring early-stage startups across various platforms and accelerators in the CEE region ..read more

Our guest for this episode has a big, bold ambition to make digital identity services the cornerstone of all economic and social activities of people around the world. Konstantin Bezuhanov is co-founder and CEO of Evrotrust Technologies, the company that aims to solve the challenges associated with secure digital identification.  Evrotrust's products are adopted by over 1.3 million users across 58 countries. The company has attracted partnerships with industry giants like Mastercard and leading banks such as Unicredit Bulbank, and KBC, and it has been recently recognized by governments an ..read more

Our guest today is Radoslav Gaydarski, co-founder of CleverPine, a company that has made significant strides in the tech industry since its inception during the pandemic. Prior to this position, he was the co-founder and CEO of Upnetix, offering client-tailored software solutions, which was acquired by Scalefocus.  With a deep background in software development and a passion for entrepreneurship, Gaydarski shares his journey from tinkering with computers in his youth to leading a company that has seen substantial growth and has recently partnered with Lufthansa Technik to innovate within ..read more

Our guest today is Milen Manev, the co-founder and CTO of PlanDelta, a next-generation planning tool bridging the gap between strategic and financial planning.  With over 20 years of experience in the IT industry, Milen has a wealth of knowledge in software product development and has held various leadership positions, including Vice President at the American software company SyncHR. He holds a Master Degree in Management of Information Systems from Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski.  In this episode we discover Milen’s approach to entrepreneurship, fundraising and what he learne ..read more

Our next guest has come a long way in his professional and personal development - from investment banking, through digital media and marketing, and e-commerce to rethinking humanity’s relationship with food. Victor Penev is a serial entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of the food database and nutrition data provider Edamam. He is also a mentor and investor in food tech startups and an advisor to early-stage entrepreneurs. Before that, Victor co-founded and sold Bulgaria’s largest Internet Company NetInfo BG. In this episode we discover what is next on his journey. In his conversation with Iri ..read more

Our next guest is an entrepreneur in the promising field of circular economy, advocating for the continuous use and reuse of materials.  Mihail Dimitrov is the co-founder and CЕO of Swipe.bg, a Bulgarian marketplace for buying and selling used smartphones. The company recently raised an investment to expand regionally and grow its market share.  Mihail Dimitrov comes with vast experience in e-commerce and business development. He previously worked for the world's largest classifieds platform OLX and Bulgaria’s largest mеdia group Nova Broadcasting Group.  In this podcast episode ..read more

Our guest is on a quest to redefine the way businesses collaborate and work with data in the cloud. With more than 20 years of experience in building successful enterprise software products, George Dochev is the co-founder and CTO of US-Bulgarian scale-up LucidLink.  The company’s solution is used by the biggest names in the media, health, and finance industries, namely Adobe, Spotify, and WebMD.  At the end of 2023, LucidLink closed the largest round for the Bulgarian ecosystem - a 75M dollars Series C.  Is LucidLink on its way to becoming the next Bulgarian unicorn? Watch the ..read more